1. Demand for Point of Transaction Terminals with Custom Application Programs
Substantial performance improvements in integrated circuits for the microcomputer and telecommunications fields have been made in recent years so that functionally enhanced integrated circuits are available at the same or, lower price. These cost/performance improvements have made it attractive to mass produce and deploy computer based systems which employ integrated circuit technology. One such system application is the point of sale transaction terminal for credit verification and credit transaction data capture. Another application is the automated bank teller terminal which enables the unattended performance of a number of types of banking transactions.
Other applications involve a wide variety of local data capture terminals which communicate with a remote host computer. It is anticipated that such system applications will eventually extend the technology into home banking terminals for transfer of money between accounts, automated payment of bills, and potentially a wide variety of other financial and non-financial transactions.
The principal customers for point of sale transaction terminals of all types are major financial institutions, including banks, savings and loan associations, and credit operations of major chains of retail stores. For a variety of reasons, different customers for point of sale transaction terminals need or desire to customize the functions of their terminals. Banks and other financial institutions are in the process of extending their walls to the merchant's checkout counter and point of sale transaction terminals are a major factor in this extension of services.
For strong merchant acceptance, the features of point of sale transaction terminals must be tailored to meet the specifically perceived, different needs of each of the different merchant groups that represent the ultimate customers for the terminal. Even among merchant groups where the services needed are essentially the same, there is no standard approach to providing these services. Thus to satisfy the needs and demands of the marketplace, point of sale transaction terminals must be able to be customized for the particular application at which they are directed. To achieve this result, the computer program being executed by the local computer system in the local terminal must be a custom application program. In addition to providing point of sale transaction terminals initially with custom application programs, customers will often need or desire to alter the application program to add or change a feature or to remedy a problem or defect discovered in the program after the terminal is installed. The customer desiring or needing a program revision may have a large number of terminals physically located at many different places.